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Well I know we already disagree about this war but to your broader point I would argue our tolerance for casualties is right where it should be.. in inverse proportion to how stupid the conflict is and the amount of lies used to sell it.
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Yeah I was surprised by it a bit, by their opinions. This thread has gone thru many orbits, we brought up the idea of two light attack, one SOF oriented and one conventional ops oriented before. I think the powers that be (fighter mafia) would probably get more comfortable with a non traditional light(er) platform that had a passing resemblance to what they know/love, namely a manned jet. In their defense, who doesn’t? My druthers, based on what we’ve seen in Ukraine, Red Sea and now Iran, a light crewed expeditionary platform, designed for delivering relevant effects efficiently and in control of unmanned assets (directly controlled all the way to authorized autonomous ops, surface and air assets) to cover large areas, numerous attack vectors and saturation waves is needed and would be accepted by the AF. That is important, they have to see themselves flying it and it as worthy of the AF. I remember a show on the -117 Nighthawk, an engineer was relaying a little funny anecdote about the jet being painted black vs a light pastel color that would have been more effective as a visual camouflage, he told the GOs this and they replied “Real men don’t fly funny looking pastel colored aircraft.” So it got the dark black paint job, looks cool and clandestine and the rest is history… Cheap enough to buy in mass, cheap enough to fly a lot, cheap to maintain and designed from the get go to work with and against unmanned vehicles / drones. Range, ACE and enough performance to defend itself.
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the 20MM rounds are "supposed to self-destruct but not all function correctly. Regardless, you would be raining metal on residential areas. So many layers to this and obviously not the forum to discuss in detail. Their success was not as much associated with low inventory of interceptors as it was commander decisions to park aircraft in the way they did, the Chinese entering the fight and providing high quality, near real-time decision intel and a lot of luck. With regard to the exchange ratio, that is more associated with UAS attack vectors not TBMs. That being said, there is work being done on that front as well. The bigger issue is the American way of war, we are VERY averse to casualties and grown more sensitive through the years. On September 17, 1862 23,000 Americans died in 12 hours of fighting at the Battle of Antietam. On September 26, 1918 2,300 Americans died in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. On October 24, 1944 2,600 were killed during fighting in World War II On November 27 – December 4, 1950 6,000 Americans were killed in Korea On January 32, 1968 246 Americans died fighting in Vietnam During combat operations in Operation Desert Storm 148 Americans died Since Feb. 28, 13 U.S. service members have been killed in the Iran War, 6 of those in a KC-135 during an accident during a support mission. Our news cycle is so accelerated and our loss tolerance is low we miss the bigger strategic picture. Over 13,000 DMPIs struck, Iran's Navy is gone, Iran's Air Force is gone, they are forced down to local tactical fighting using IR weapons which are still deadly but have a much smaller impact.
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Regime - intact Ballistic missile threat - intact Nuclear material - at large Population - more rallied behind their government than before Regime - pinky promising they won’t make a nuke which you wouldn’t believe last time but will now for some reason Yeah dude so much progress has been made
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A buddy of mine was outside the wire around Balad when a C-RAM went off. He described the rain of metal from the self destruct rounds. He wasn't happy. Hurt someone, probably. Kill someone, maybe a chance, and while small, is still a chance. But we probably need to start putting in anti drone systems at all bases, even CONUS.
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I should have specified: OCONUS base used for contingency operations inside the WEZ of a Shahed.
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Obviously I don’t know and couldn’t post it here if I did. But leading up to the ceasefire it seemed like hits on our stuff were increasing — AWACS, PSAB tankers, THAAD radar array etc.. all open source. And this was after a month of attriting their launchers. Also open source reporting from the Israel and US side that interceptor numbers were getting “critically low.” I’m not saying the patriot/thaad/sm-3 aren’t super rad systems. I just don’t think we were winning the volume game or ‘exchange ratio’ @ClearedHot alluded to and that was one of the reasons the desire for a ceasefire seemed urgent on our side
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I will say it’s a solid rhetorical pivot from you guys though.. Can’t argue the war on its own merits? Just invoke “secret” info that no one can confirm or refute in an open forum to prove the whole thing is justified and a super good idea. I guess that’s checkmate because I honestly can’t do much with that
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Phalanx CIWS C-RAM in action at night compilation Don't the rounds self-destruct after a certain range now for this very reason?
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Like I said the Fox News boomer energy is absolutely seeping out of this place. I’m sure all you guys use your 30 y.o. clearances to pour over the DNI report every day.. meanwhile the only one we can actually post here (the unclassified one) contradicts the entire premise for this war. So I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree and you guys can all have an I told you so circle jerk in a vault over what the “real information” is. Maybe the real report is what Netanyahu’s got access to because according to him the threat has been imminent for 30+ years
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Idiots.... "Two targeting pods?" "The airplane has a 200NM combat radius?" "This airplane is design for low-altitude fight" Change name to Doorknob and Donkey.
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You are getting close...the real equation is how many interceptors do you have to build to achieve you desired PK. In the industry the problem is being called the exchange ratio. With the Houthis we were shooting multi-million dollar SM2s, with the TBMs we are shooting multi-million dollar Patriots, when Iran tried the attack last year the F-15's were chucking multi-million dollar AMRAAMs and AIM-9Xs. USAF in particular has invested a LOT and made industry go fast as realized by the AGR-20 Falco which flips the equation back to our favor, interceptors now cost 1/3 that of the threat. Ummm NO! Are you out of your mind? Use Nellis, Eglin, Andrews, Joint Base San Antonio as examples, what do you say to the locals when you start spraying 4100 rounds of 20MM into neighborhoods around the base in the name of self-defense? CRAM is great at FOBs but CONUS bases need a different and layered solution.
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Mover and Gonky discuss Red Wolf on OA-1 Posted as the skeptical views they share on the utility of it add (I think) to the broader point that I don’t believe the AF likes or believes in distributing fires capabilities to non traditional (not fighter/attack or bomber platforms) This must be overcome IMHO at high level Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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I think putting a CRAM at every base, not just FOBs, is a no brainer now.
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Spore24 joined the community
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